High medical costs, short-staffed businesses, low-performing schools, crime and vacant houses, homelessness, frustrations and injustices. An adequate supply of good places to live is not a magic wand but it would go a long way to improving health and stability. The persistent shortage of safe affordable housing consigns people to living in places that pose health risks and to moving frequently in desperate search for better options, resulting in deteriorating houses and transient neighborhoods. Living conditions spiral downward into a deep pit that is almost impossible to get out of. But imagine the difference when people don’t have to worry about leaking roofs and high rents and can focus on their health and families and jobs, on school work and active participation in their communities.Continue Reading

The impact of housing on health is a growing topic of discussion in health transformation in public health conferences around the country. Dr. Megan Sandel MD, MPH, the nation’s leading expert on how housing impacts child health, is coming to Greensboro for Housing Summit 2019.

In Greensboro, community partnerships are already addressing health through housing interventions.

Here are five of the ways:

1. As we age or experience mobility challenges, our housing may no longer fit our needs for accessibility and safety; we may risk injuries from falling and become isolated in our own homes.

Prescription: Aging Gracefully. Community Housing Solutions and Triad Healthcare Network are partnering to modify homes and medical protocols to the specific needs of each homeowner to improve health. As part of a national research study, this Greensboro partnership is proving the benefits of the integrated approach.

How can housing, health, and employment build a healthy economy?

What happens when housing declines?

How can we engage our community in re-building a healthy economy?

I’m glad to show the positive connections between safe and affordable housing and benefits to the community and individuals of a stronger local economy and healthier people. As the graphic above shows, what we sometimes think of as separate things – jobs and economic activity, or asthma and health care – actually link back to housing.

Here’s what I see in Greensboro – I’m eager to hear how other communities are working on similar kinds of engagement of residents, citizens, health care people, and university resources. Continue Reading

Would you tell your children there is no food because you gave all your money to the slumlord? Or would you buy groceries and risk another eviction, knowing that each time the money doesn’t stretch far enough to pay the full rent, that it is harder and harder to get housing?

That is the agonizing dilemma of thousands of mothers and fathers and grandparents raising grandchildren as they experience the “persistent shortage of safe affordable housing”. Eviction, if they don’t give every penny to the landlord. Homelessness, because they can’t find anything else when wages are low and rents are rising and eviction records are counted against them. Plus, landlords may not want families with children; that is illegal discrimination but common practice. Substandard, because that may be all someone will finally agree to rent to them.

If our community had more housing, in decent condition, with rents affordable for families, then children could eat and not change schools four times a year and not go to the hospital in asthma crisis. And parents could smile instead of being depressed and stressed as they have to choose food OR roof OR health but not all three.

Please Note…

This site welcomes a variety of viewpoints and perspectives on community engagement. Ideas shared here should not be considered as being endorsed by the UNC School of Government. The School is nonpartisan and policy-neutral.